This one died on a grushnak pride vault because I got dispelled by a dreadmaster and died like a bitch, luckily I had blood of life

Races

Dwarf is the one and only option since you need 2 class categories from stonewarden

Talent trees

Default class points are just the perfect amount to get everything you want, I didn't do any of the alchemist requests, so ideally you would have 2 more generics and class points than what you see on the image

Unlock order

BirthTechnique / Magical combat (This + augur is where most of your damage comes from)Spell / Earth (max augur asap)Spell / Eldritch Shield (You get both flurry and 6 range windblade from here)Wild-gift / Earthen power (this is the tree that enables you to use 2 shields as weapons, also gives a really good defensive buff, retaliatory melee attack against melees, and a shield that replenishes your mana when triggered)Chronomancy / Flux (free 30% damage reduction lol)Psionic / Psi-fighting (obligatory psionic category for tk slot, also really good sinergy with pes/icctw + augmentation)Corruption / Doom shield (really good use of category point, osmosis shield is really good since you're using 2 shields, and hardened core ends up giving a lot of armor/spellpower)

lvl 10Cunning / Shadow magic (get 1 point on each skill once you get it)

lvl 20Tinkers (just use choose first escort addon)Build the usual good tinkers, and look out for when you can build mana coil for your staff

Around this time you're also getting Wild-gift / Harmony for free from the heart, invest 5 points into elemental harmony once you unlock it

lvl 36Spell / Temporal (beeline for essence of speed, and don't forget to sustain it unlike me who noticed around 10 levels later)

You also get Corruption / Hexes for free if you help the Grand corruptor invade Zigur, you have enough points to max burning hex, but I didn't bother

Stat priorities and Prodigies

Mag until 30 or so base pointsMax str after, then wil, then cunAny spare points go into magic

You want to get Pain Enhancement System at lvl 30, then I Can Carry The World! at 42.

PES first because it's just way too good thanks to augmentation and your 3 skills that boost your spellpower based on cunning and strength

ICCTW second because it further helps you to boost PES to ridiculous levels and also helps you with mana costs by setting your fatigue to 0

How does this actually work

You're essentially an arcane blade on steroids, you use double shield and a staff on your tk slot, all of those weapons have the accuracy proc bonus built in, so you do obscene amounts of damage. You will be oneshotting everything all game long since the beginning.

What should you be careful around

The only things that are dangerous are antimagic mobs (orc mage-hunter, anything with mana clash), sustain removal (dreadmasters, archmages), Champions of urh-rok too since they have passive spell disruption when hit.

Probably some other things but they don't tend to stick around that long.

Ask anything in the comments, the guide is really barebones so there's probably a lot of questions you might want to ask

Last edited by dadito on Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Any thoughts about using Demon Seeds? Depending on how demon seed talents calculate block value for dual-shields (I don't know the answer) I feel like certain talents could be ridiculously good. Plus there's that one which gives global speed.

I thought about demon seeds, but they need a really big class point investment if you wanna get everything (10 points? i don't actually know since i've never actually played em), and i don't know what i would drop for it

The only way i see it working is dropping psi-fighting and 4 points from shadow magic, but psifighting is really really good here

I don't think i ever depleted my vim bar, you can certainly sustain it with the vim on kill you get by default. Also you only really need it against dangerous enemies, and there aren't many since mobs don't last that long.

I tried your build and it is super, everything die 1-2 hit. I really like the Hardened Core armor + Stone Fortress combo. Do you have a similarly strong build that can be used in the Embers of Rage campaign (no dwarf)? I can't finish it, the endboss always kills me, but I finally want revenge with an op char. (It doesn't need to be an Arcane Combat centered build.) Thank you!

My favorite EoR build is still demonbutcher.Basically, steamsaws count as shields for the purpose of talents like Demon Seed, so you just get Butchery, Demonic Pact and further stuff that you like.I recommend getting Demonic Strength personally, since it is very easy to keep up the vim for Abyssal Shield.Also, Tempest of Metal works with Arcane Combat, meaning you can potentially get a lot of triggers - but you also run out of resources very fast.

Important Note: While steamsaws may count as shields for the purpose of talents, they count as mainhand for demon seeds - meaning you can get something like "silence on hit" + "Blood Grasp on hit" (my favorite combination.)

I'm actually playing a build similar to what Erenion describes in the AoA campaign right now. It's very strong once you get it running. I did a version without Arcane Combat though, since I've played a number of AC/Adventurer builds already.

My favorite EoR build is still demonbutcher.Basically, steamsaws count as shields for the purpose of talents like Demon Seed, so you just get Butchery, Demonic Pact and further stuff that you like.I recommend getting Demonic Strength personally, since it is very easy to keep up the vim for Abyssal Shield.Also, Tempest of Metal works with Arcane Combat, meaning you can potentially get a lot of triggers - but you also run out of resources very fast.

Important Note: While steamsaws may count as shields for the purpose of talents, they count as mainhand for demon seeds - meaning you can get something like "silence on hit" + "Blood Grasp on hit" (my favorite combination.)

You can put a third weapon seed on your TK weapon (it's a staff, of course), so for instance I was rolling Corrosive Cone + Blood Grasp + Flame Bolts. Since the seeds grant the talents to YOU and not give them to items as on-hit procs, it doesn't matter if you're actually using BtF to attack with the TK slot or not (not).

Actually, the warden version with shields is much more powerful than with steamsaws. Shields are talented like staves, which means that procs from arcane combat are increased by 2.5% times acc-defence, while for steamsaws it just increases the crit chance like axes, and it is useless when you have reached 100% crit chance.

With a high accuracy, you can get insane procs (like an arcanereaver with short staves). On late game, on the (defenceless) dummy trainer, I got spells that dealt 15000 *each*, while the direct applications of those spells (or an application while replacing shields with steamsaws) was around 5500.

I also recommand taking Demonic Strength. Abyssal shield is great in term of defence, but Demonic Blood is very powerful offensively, as the extra damage that its adds is applied multiplicatively. If you have, say 50% damage modifier for a certain element and 50% from Demonic Strength, your final damage will be 1.5*1.5=2.25 (and not 2). And it applies to all damage, of course.

I think since he gets a lot of spellpower from Strength and Cunning, and spellpower has diminishing returns, maxing Magic wouldn't result in that much actual damage. Willpower increases mana, lowers equilibrium fail chance, and increases how much vim you gain per kill. Not that it matters much for this build, but Willpower also determines your melee damage with shields when using Beyond the Flesh.

Last edited by Effigy on Sat Dec 09, 2017 11:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

More Willpower = more Strength from Augmentation = more Spellpower from Harden and more damage from PES.

I'm gonna try fitting Demonic Pact and Demonic Strength in there. Probably dropping Flux (Abyssal Shield will handle the whole damage reduction thing) and Temporal (it's good but I can't stand the three useless skills in this tree) or Augmented Mobility (you have to get those generics from somewhere).

I also recommand taking Demonic Strength. Abyssal shield is great in term of defence, but Demonic Blood is very powerful offensively, as the extra damage that its adds is applied multiplicatively. If you have, say 50% damage modifier for a certain element and 50% from Demonic Strength, your final damage will be 1.5*1.5=2.25 (and not 2). And it applies to all damage, of course.

That sounds awesome, maybe i'll end up revisiting adventurer in the future, let me know how it worked out

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